Jacquard Loom: Early Computer Programing (2011) [video] | Hacker News Reader

Jacquard Loom: Early Computer Programing (2011) [video]

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For those interested, the textile industry (and their ridiculously expensive power looms and weaving CAD/CAM software) are ripe for disruption, if a smart hacker can get the cost of a loom down to the sub 1K range. There are a whole lot of mom & pop traditional handloom weavers\hobbyists who would love it.

I'm working on it actually. I'm looking to sell the product initially not the loom as there's too many things that could go wrong with selling the loom. Under Australian consumer law I'd need to warrant everything to be completely error free or give a refund. I just can't do that at the moment at least.

I'm working on it too. Going for a fairly simple design, plan to release it as open source hardware.

Haven't started on the software side. Do you plan on releasing your own software for your loom, or adapt something that currently exists?

There are some interesting projects happening now and then in the space. The one's I have noticed are

openknit.org

electroloom

nervous systems

Thanks for the info, knew about OpenKnit, but the other two were new to me. Do you have a link to 'nervous systems'? I can't find it online.

In the interest of completeness, there's also OSLOOM (no visible progress since 2013 though): http://www.osloom.org

Interesting...thanks for the link.

And here you go... http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/software/ This one I found interesting too http://www.tienchiu.com/how-tos/equipment/a-comparison-of-ja...

Thanks Sven7.

Just out of interest, are you interested in using looms or is it just a fun thing to learn about? :-)

Honestly not sure :) Maybe at the back of my mind looking for a long term hobby project :)

I am a software guy. Had no idea about/interest in this stuff . Then a couple months ago, I got a tour of a textile factory which had a bunch of power looms. A week later (by pure chance) I got to spend an afternoon with a master silk weaver. And I was just blown away by the complexity he and his "simple" handloom, and "simple" actions were producing. I don't know how to describe it, other than to say, there was just a great beauty to the whole thing.

Been fascinated and reading up ever since. Would be interested to hear what you are upto and how you got into it . You can mail me at sven7.msgs @ gmail if you want to connect.

Btw you might have already heard about them, through openknit but there is another project www.knitic.com, based on the addi knitting machine which is also quite cool.

Makes sense. Breaking it down into smaller modules sounds like a good way to go. Good luck!

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